Workers at Upstate apple farm frustrated by owner's refusal to abide by contract

Despite an arbitrator’s sanction of a collective bargaining agreement covering workers at an Upstate apple farm, the company has refused to institute its provisions. 

The deadlock led workers at Wafler Farms in Wayne County late last month to publicize their frustrations at having to work according to the company’s terms rather than those outlined in the contract. 

“Imagine harvesting fruits that feed America yet being told that we don’t deserve the protections that are already written in law,” Mario Ming said at a Sept. 23 press event as his co-workers waved and snapped the red and black banners of the United Farm Workers of America, which has represented the workers since 2022.

“We are the workers that prune the trees, tend to the orchards and harvest the apples. Without us, there's no Wafler Farm. Yet still, we are treated as disposable tools.”

The workers, most if not all of them Jamaican, come to the U.S. to work under what is called the H-2A program, which allows employers to hire foreign nationals for seasonal agricultural work if the farms have been unable to find U.S. citizens. 

According to a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services database, 66 workers were approved to work at Wafler Farms in Fiscal Year 2025. Wafler was among 321 employers in New York State eligible to participate in the program. 

“This is extremely hard labor that we are doing. But we don't mind. Even though. Even though, even now and again, we might hear the phrase that ‘Migrant workers are taking our jobs,’” Ming said. “No. These are the jobs that no Americans want to do.”

The February decision by the arbitrator, Saratoga attorney Eric W. Larson, to sanction a two-year contract grew out of a Jan. 29 hearing at which the union presented its case but at which the company declined to participate. 

According to the agreement’s terms, most workers would be paid $19.48 an hour, with workers operating machinery getting 25 cents  more. The H-2A workers are currently earning $18.83 an hour, what’s called the adverse effect wage rate — a minimum hourly wage set by the U.S. Department of Labor that H-2A visa program employers must pay. 

The contract also includes provisions regarding seniority and seasonal recall rights, paid holidays, paid bearevement leave, paid vacation time and the opportunity to participate in a pension plan, among other benefits, a union representative said.  But since the company is not abiding by the contract, the workers are not benefiting from any of those provisions for now.

Lowered wages?

The Trump administration, though, late last month issued an interim final rule that could reduce the adverse effect wage rate, by more than $3 to $15.68, according to the UFW. The rule would also allow employers to deduct amounts from the workers' paychecks for "employer-provided housing," which is typically no better than no-frills bunkhouses.

The administration cited increasing labor expenses for agricultural producers as among the reasons for the proposed rule, which is subject to a public-comment period ending Dec. 1. It also noted that the decrease in undocumented agricultural workers — who on average earn as much as 24 percent less than legal workers — has increased labor costs. 

“Despite rising wages, there is no indication that unemployed or marginally attached U.S.[-born] workers are entering the agricultural labor force in meaningful numbers. Without swift action, agricultural employers will be unable to maintain operations, and the nation’s food supply will be at risk,” he U.S. Department of Labor’s acting assistant secretary for employment and training, Susan Frazier, wrote. 

It is unclear for now how the rule, if it is effected, would impact the farmworkers’ contract. 

The United Farm Workers filed an unfair labor practice charge in late April against Wafler Farm with the state’s Public Employment Relations Board, noting that Wafler and its representatives “have repudiated the existence of a lawful collective bargaining agreement.” 

Neither farm representatives nor their attorney responded to requests for comment. 

Farmworkers in New York State won the right to organize only in 2019, when then-Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the Farmworker Fair Labor Practices Act, which guarantees farmworkers the right to collectively bargain and to receive overtime pay, disability benefits, paid leave, days off and unemployment benefits. It also obliges farmers to improve conditions at labor camps.

Nonetheless, farmers and farming companies, often backed by the state’s well-organized and -funded agricultural sector, continue to resist bargaining with their workers and their unions, in part by continuing to litigate. 

Farm owners and their advocates have argued that immigration regulations preclude H-2A workers from union representation and collective bargaining. 

But, in a decision last year, the Public Employment Relations Board disagreed, noting that the Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act expanded the definition of “employee” as established by the state statute to include farm laborers. The Farm Workers Act further defined “farm laborers” as “any individual engaged or permitted by an employer to work on a farm.”

In a series of five decisions issued in August 2024, PERB also upheld the UFW’s certification as bargaining representatives for workers at five farms, Wafler among them.

richardk@thechiefleader.com